Children of Light
by DaMick
Summary: Cordy gets a shocking vision after Angel and Buffy haven't talked in a while. Set late season two-ish. will continue if i get some response. it might seem predictable at first, but trust me it won't end like any of the others.
1. Default Chapter

I own nothing and it's going to stay that way.

Children of light.

A flash of the brightest hot white light followed quickly by the all too familiar pain. Her hand flies to the side of her head as though she can stop the torment so easily and another flash forces its way into her head. Foreign knowledge and the hi-def images that go with it cram their way into her head and she feels the world around her tip sideways. Strong arms catch her and she opens her eyes long enough to see Angel's face before the pain squeezes them shut again. The third revelation turns her away from him and it's not the pain that keeps her eyes closed. How can she know now, what the powers barged their way into her head to tell her, and look at that man in the eyes?

"Cordy? Are you alright?" Worry tinges his voice and she manages a nod.

"Water." She croaks. "And about a dozen aspirin." She hears footsteps crossing the hotel lobby but she's still wrapped in his arms. Wesley, she guessed; he must've been coming in just as it hit me. The footsteps return and she opens her eyes again to take the glass and far too few pills.

"What was it? Something bad?" She shakes her head. How to say this? A year ago she would have just yelled it out in shock and disbelief. But now… she felt there was something more to be considered. She forced herself to look at him but her acting skills failed her and he read something in her face.

"That bad?"

"No. It's just that…" She looked back and forth between the two men and then down at the floor. "Maybe we should talk later. Give me some time to think about this one." The men look at each other. They know it's not often I go all cryptic, she thought; they know something's up. The vampire and the ex-watcher finished their silent consultation and Angel took the lead.

"Okay. Let me help you up to my room."

"No!" She took a breath to steady herself before speaking again. One look in his eyes told her he wasn't going to let her go home until he was sure she was fine. Still, there was No Way she was ready to be alone with him yet. Not after… "No. I'll be okay. But I will go get cleaned up." She managed to say it much softer and the guys exchanged another worried look. Ignoring them she pulled herself to her feet using their shoulders as leverage. She was halfway to the stairs before Angel's voice stopped her short.

"Hey, if you need anything we're right here."

"Yeah. I know." She kept her back to them and made her own slow deliberate way up the stairs. The hallway was clear down to his room as they were the only ones in the hotel. She paused at his door debating whether to go in or not, but in the end elected for a room across the hall. The room was empty and smelled slightly musty but it offered solitude and a place to wash her face. She took a few minutes of running water to gather some peace around her before trying to pick apart the divine message shoved into her skull.

It seemed so long ago now that they found out about Angel's shanshu thing; the one that said he'd get to become human someday after the apocalypse. So happy they had been together, despite Angel's enforced lack of caring at first. She knew that wasn't what he had been fighting for all this time. He longed for redemption, or at least the chance to undo some of the wrong he'd done as the soulless monster Angelous. But that wasn't the only reason he fought as hard as he did, why he sacrificed as much as he had to get the job done.

She remembered how she had looked at him and Buffy together in high school. As much as she had hated to admit it back then Buffy had always had something she hadn't. And it wasn't just her mystic power, her super strength, it was something different. Something Cordelia couldn't name. She had wanted Angel because he was Buffy's. maybe it even had something to do with not even being able to keep Xander.

She shook her head to clear those thoughts. She was a different person now. The shallow high school girl she had been never had to worry about one of her friends not coming home at night or what was happening to some innocent in a dark alley somewhere. No, that girl had only worried about how much of daddy's money she was going to spend that weekend or which popularity contest she was going to win that week.

She remembered the battle at her high school graduation, all of her friends fighting together against the things that go bump in the night. She hadn't known that was the night Angel was going to walk away. She hadn't seen Buffy afterwards; they had never really been close after all. But she had heard later.

Now here was the part that really blew her mind. Ninety nine million to one were the odds of anyone ever falling in real, mind blowing, perfect love. And she knew the one couple that beat the odds, several times in fact. One couple that loved that one sweet perfect love, sent each other to hell, and have to live separately so that he doesn't become a mass murderer again. Doomed to be apart. Forbidden fruit to the millionth degree.

Cordy sat on the old dirty mattress and dropped her head to her hands, the first of several tears already on their way down her face. How could it have happened? The odds were entirely against such a thing happening. They could never be together. Ever! And then there was the prophesy…

"Cordy?" His voice outside the door. Of course he knew where she was. Hell, he could probably smell what she'd eaten for lunch two days ago. She let out a sigh and composed her face as best she could, but he didn't wait for her invitation and opened the door.

"Angel I'm fine. I'll be down in a minute."

"You're crying."

"Let me guess; you smelled the salt from down the hall."

"Actually, your mascara's all over your hands." Looking down she saw it was true and silently cursed Maybeline for lying to her. She sniffed and went back to the sink.

"Angel…"

"Look, if you still need more time I guess it'll be okay for you to go back to your apartment. I'll have Wesley take you back and you don't have to come back in 'till tomorrow."

"Angel. I think you should sit down." He looked at her for moment with those big beautiful eyes of his and then took a corner of the mattress, crossing his arms over his chest and looking very uncomfortable but willing to humor her. She took a breath and couldn't find a starting place so she grabbed the middle and went with it.

"I know what you did… About Buffy… I know what happened on the day I don't remember." Finally he showed some reaction. He winced his eyes closed and it looked to her like he was trying by sheer force of will to have her unsay those words.

"It. Didn't. Happen." Each word sounded as if it was being forced painfully out of his mouth and she thought she saw his arms clench tighter around his chest. She moved to his side smoothly and slid her arm across his shoulders. Her other hand gently moved his face to look at hers.

"There's something… the powers, they want to tell you something…" She sighed and turned her own eyes away. "When was the last time you talked to Buffy?" He was frozen for a long moment just staring at her but when he did move it was with every bit of his other worldly speed. She blinked at the sudden breeze and moved back to the sink to wash away fresh tears.


	2. anybody lose a slayer?

CHP 2

Jessie: thanks for your interest and I hope I can surprise you.

Cordelia slowly pulled herself together and began her slow journey back down to the hotel lobby. Wesley stood behind the counter bent over some book, his brow furrowed in concentration. Looking around the lobby she realized Angel was nowhere to be seen. She stepped down to the lobby floor and walked past the circular couch toward his closed office door.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you." She stopped with her hand on the cool handle. Wesley's voice seemed calm but he always sounded that way when he was immersed in his world of books. She turned to face him and realized he had stopped to wipe his glasses.

"Did he say anything?" Wesley shook his head.

"Just bolted for his door and picked up the phone." He pointed to the flashing light on the front desk phone as Cordelia made her way over to place her head in her hands on the counter top. He took a long look at her body language and slipped his glasses back into place.

"I take it this latest vision carried with a more… personal message?"

"You could say that. It's strange, this happened over a year ago. What would the powers want him to do about it now?" As if to answer her the door to Angel's office burst open and he strode back into the room.

"Is everything alright?" Wesley did a good job of hiding any emotion from his voice, probably because he still had no idea what was going on.

"Hardly. Giles doesn't know where she is and he's got his own problems right now. Apparently Faith woke up a few months ago and they cut some kind of deal."

"So where are you going?" She realized he had grabbed his coat and was heading for the door.

"You two do what you can around here. I'm gonna go try and find her."

"What makes you think she's here?" She didn't ask the other question, what were they going to find that the watcher's council couldn't.

"She hid out here before. After she… After she got expelled." He means after she sent him to hell. But there was no more talking to him as the door closed softly behind him. Cordelia turned back to a puzzled looking Wesley and sighed.

"I'm sorry, but who exactly are we looking for?"

The story took longer than she thought it would to tell him. You'd think a trained watcher would listen more than question every piece of information. Not to mention the gaps in her own memory bogging her down on more than one occasion. Finally she had had enough.

"Look, it's not like the powers gave me back my memory. I got a vision which normally means piecemeal parts of a story. Now deal with it."

"Okay, so what you're saying is that Angel got infected with some kind of demon blood and became human again. It happened while Buffy was here and the two of them spent a whole day together before Angel realized he couldn't give up being a champion and asked the oracles to erase the day?"

"You got it. So now what do we do?" Wesley sighed as though to set the facts more firmly into his mind.

"Well, I suppose we'd better try to find her. I'll have to give my contacts on the council a call and see if they still hate me."

"And I'll try searching online and maybe try and reach Willow for the whole story. I only wish Angel hadn't stormed out of here so quickly. Sounded like something big is going down in sunnydale, if Giles isn't even looking for Buffy anymore."

"There is another possibility." She looked over at him from her place at the computer screen. "If I know Giles, the only way he'd stop looking for Buffy, apocalypse aside, is if he found her and didn't like the results."

"No. This is Buffy. There's no way she's dead." Wesley nodded in agreement, his face displaying all the displeasure he shared for the idea.

"Still, though" he said, "I should probably ask the council if they've heard anything about another slayer being called." Cordelia said nothing and turned back to the computer. Even as the machine was hunting through cyber space for the missing slayer, her own mind was catapulting off in almost as many different directions. A glance at Wesley's back as he bent low over the phone dragged the thought of him into it as well.

Did he feel as violated as she did? Probably not, he wasn't even there when it happened. But it was still like Angel hadn't trusted them with what happened. Shouldn't he at least have told one of us? His own team? The screens formed and changed before her eyes as she narrowed and refined her search and sent her own mind off in a different tangent.

If Angel didn't tell us it would be for his own reasons. Maybe he didn't want to think about it. If he didn't tell anybody else it wouldn't make it real; it really didn't happen. That seemed to fit better with his reaction upstairs. If she were part of the one perfect love for a century and the forbidden fruit wasn't so forbidden for one day that could never really happen in the universe they lived in, what would she do? Wow, this was getting way too complicated.

She scrolled through another listing that wasn't Buffy summers and turned to look at Wesley's retreating back. Well, he hadn't told her anything so it was either no news or bad news. At least he was off the phone. She looked up the number and dialed it carefully, unsure of who would answer.

"Hello?"

"Dawn? It's Cordelia."

"Oh." Such malice. Okay, so she hadn't seen Dawn since she'd left, but she hadn't been that bad when she lived in sunnydale, had she?

"Is Willow around?"

"Hang on." The next voice was Willow's, but it didn't sound like her.

"What do you want, Cordelia?"

"I need to find Buffy."

"We all need to find Buffy. I'll tell you what I know but I'm kind of trying to keep something from finding Dawn."

"How long has she been missing?"

"Last year. She left after her and Riley had some kind of falling out. She took Xander and they broke in to this secret government group called the initiative, they had a base underground by the college. Anyway, she had some really big news to tell him but he didn't believe her."

"Let me guess. She was pregnant."

"How'd you know?"

"It's a whole powers that be vision thing."

"Anyway, turns out that Riley had some kind of… problem… in that area. The government had him on all these experimental drugs and things and one of the side effects was a severe drop in his reproducing ability."

"Couldn't you just say sterile? Okay, so Buffy tells him, he wigs out, and then?"

"She freaks. She starts rampaging through the facility shooting people left and right with that electroshock gun and trying to find records of when they artificially impregnated her and with what."

"Pregnant psycho slayer on the war path?"

"That's not the worst of it. In the end she shoots Riley and leaves him there. Xander tried to stop her and talk some sense but she just hit him and ran off. He dragged Riley out but they never saw her again. She stopped by here and I was the last person who saw her. Well, me and Dawn anyway."

"How's Dawn been? She sounded a little…"

"Better since Faith came out of her coma. She went to visit a lot and was there when Faith woke up."

"Having her sister there probably helped, huh?"

"We'd like to think so. Look, I haven't had to time to look anymore, but if you find Buffy tell her we still think about her. We still want her back. And we could really use her help in all this."

"Thanks, Willow." She hung up the phone and looked up into Wes's face.

"I'm surprised she had so much time to talk to you. According to the council, the situation in sunnydale is not a walk in the park."

"Alright, well what else did you hear?"

"There have been no new slayers called. All magical attempts to locate Buffy have failed or been misdirected. And Faith has taken up the duties of the official slayer under Mr. Giles's tutelage."

"No leads."

"No leads. Did you find anything?" He gestured at the computer.

"If Willow couldn't find her on this thing there's no way I'm going to." She turned off the search and looked back up into the ex-watcher's eyes. "What is it?"

"There's something bigger than a missing slayer going on in sunnydale."

"Like what?"


End file.
